The Jewish Power Blog: Restraint
After crossing the Jordan and conquering Jericho and Ai (Joshua 1-8), Joshua continues his march of conquest. He immediately encounters a group of dusty, well-worn travelers, who inform him that they are from a distant kingdom, Gibeon, who have heard of Israel’s great power and who wish to be their tributaries. Joshua and his men are impressed, and swear an oath of non-aggression with them. Marching on, of course, they come to Gibeon in just three days and realize they’ve been hoodwinked (Apparently, the spies had not given Joshua a good map…). Suppressing their instinct – and the people’s demand – to avenge this deceit, Joshua and his chieftains accept the Gibeonites’ explanation that they were afraid for their lives, and are willing to become a class of servants to Israel in order to stay alive; so they stand by their oath despite the Gibeonites’ trickery. (Joshua 9).
In the Talmud (Gittin 46a) the rabbis point out that an oath based on deceit is not valid and Joshua was under no obligation to spare the Gibeonites – but that he did so “to sanctify God’s name” – i.e., so that Israel would not even give the appearance of violating an oath.
A couple of centuries later, David’s kingdom suffers from a three-year famine, and God informs David that it is due to a massacre of Gibeonites, committed by Saul, in violation of Joshua’s oath. David seeks resolution and the Gibeonites demand that seven of Saul’s sons be executed in retribution. This done, the famine ends and the Gibeonites continue in their old relationship with Israel. (2 Sam 21).
Israel, under Joshua, obviously had the power to destroy Gibeon; indeed they were on course to do so until they were deceived by the Gibeonites’ little performance. And as the rabbis pointed out, after they discovered the trick, they were under no legal or moral obligation to spare Gibeon. That is, they not only had the power, but the moral justification to use it to the full. So why didn’t they? The rabbis suggest it was to avoid damaging Israel’s moral reputation: people who didn’t know the technicalities of invalidation of oaths would observe the massacre and get the impression that one can’t rely on Israel’s oath.
But maybe Joshua also figured that a peace treaty with terms in Israel’s favor was preferable to another massacre, even though God’s instructions had been to massacre or to expel the Canaanites. And if Joshua’s behavior was not pleasing to God, why does God seem to have signaled approval, later on, when Israel was afflicted with drought in response to Saul’s massacre of Gibeonites, in violation of Joshua’s oath?
It seems that no matter how powerful you are, if you see yourself as a victim, it is very difficult to form a rational judgment of your own power and to apply it productively. The people were angry and instinctively wanted blood (“The whole community muttered against the chieftains…” [9:18]): not only to continue the conquest, but also and especially as vengeance for the Gibeonites’ trickery. And, given their conquering experiences so far, there was no reason to fear armed conflict with the Gibeonites – with God on our side, total, immediate victory was assured. But Joshua seems to have understood Israel’s power differently: If we have the power to do whatever we want, it behooves us to think carefully about what we really want. After all, if we are indeed powerful, we can afford to think a bit “outside the box,” and demonstrate our power by using it in a more beneficial, unconventional, way.
In my last post I quoted the passage from the Mishnah (Avot 4:1),
Ben Zoma says: Who is mighty? He who conquers his passions (or: evil inclination), as it is written (Prov. 16:32): “Better to be forbearing than mighty, to have self-control than to conquer a city.”
A medieval commentary on this Mishnah adds this:
And some say: [Who is mighty?] He who makes his enemy into his friend. (Avot D’Rabbi Natan A 1:23)
Just as the virtue of personal humility is not self-abnegation but rather a balanced and objective awareness of one’s strengths and weaknesses, so that one is neither submissive nor overweening, so too with the nation: a rational analysis of power and vulnerability, opportunities and risks, should guide policies. The ideal is to find the constructive alternative to the extreme options of surrender or lashing out. Maybe Joshua understood that firepower and power are not the same thing. As historian Motti Golani puts it: “Restraint is not defeatism… Restraint is the refinement of the use of force: the wise, mature, minimal, and effective use of force.” (Wars Don’t Just Happen [Heb], 2002, p. 118)
Moreover, applying the above definition of humility to a nation suggests that that self-evaluation of strengths and weaknesses goes beyond counting tanks and jets. Measuring national power is far more complex than that. Not just the number of soldiers, but their degree of motivation; not just technological superiority, but the degree of social solidarity; not just the authority of the hierarchy, but the trust of the citizenry; not just “strong” leaders, but smart ones; not just passion, but rational planning; not just vengeance, but a vision.
